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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Since no one else's done one - sourpus's EOTWQ

1) I like chocolate. So sue me. Always have. More or less any kind of chocolate - I like it. Once I open up a bar of anything, I eat the whole lot; I cant save it. I'm not that keen on white chocolate, although I wont say no. The only kind I never liked was Caramac, which I found sickly and downright distressing.

Q: What single foodstuff item (not brandname) can you eat til it pops out your luggoles and are there any exceptions (maybe a brand, or could just be a variety) within that category which you cant stand to even look at, if so which?

2) Relatively recently, I developed a strong interest in the idea that there is an as-yet-unacknowledged (by science) additional law of the universe known as 'the law of attraction'. It states that 'that which is like unto itself is drawn'. Within this law is the notion that a person's thoughts are central to the creation of their life and that 'you get what you think about, whether you want it or not' (in other words, that by giving your attention/thoughts to anything, you attract it into your experience and it has physical manifestation). Luckily, there is a lag of time - so you are not troubled by instant manifestation at every turn - but you do need to get that positive and deliberate focussing (even, where necessary, disregarding your material surroundings) is necessary at all times, in order not to manifest by default, as apparently most of us do.

Q: If you could found a new law for the universe, what would it be and how would it change the way we experience life?

3) When I was a kid, my granmother taught me how to knit. Not the most fashionable skill maybe, but, in retrospect, a very useful one. I was very young (just a nipper) and of course lost all interest when first football and then music began to loom incredibly large in my adolescence. I dont even need to tell you how uncool (not to mention dubious) it would have been to keep it up into my teens. As a result, I have forgotten every last thing she taught me and would be hard pressed nowadays even to sew on a button for myself without paying close attention to my actions.

Q: Have you ever acquired a life skill and then forgotten it all again and wish you hadnt?

4) Here in Hungary, people talk about having a 'seventh sense' about something - like when you call someone on the telephone, out of the blue and they just knew it would be you before they picked up the phone. In English, of course, we talk about five 'normal' senses, and it is our so-called sixth one which we use to determine such things. I've tried counting them for my Hungarian friends, but they still insist that there are seven senses.

Q: If you could add another sense to human perception, what would it be and why?

5) No preamble for this one.

Q: If you could come back as any animal, bird or insect, which one would it be and why? Mine would be a seabird - probably (with reflection concerning question one) a Gannet. Gliding over the waves, feeling the sea spray and riding those thermals must be a hell of a buzz!

2. Much too complicated to think of, after a night of excellent food & wine up in the Swiss mountains, might come back to his one later....

3. Used to play golf (quite good) when I was a lot younger, became fed up with it when it became the yuppie & elite sport over here some 20 years ago, might want to pick that up again some time in the future, don't know how easy/hard that might be....

4. None, quite happy with the six senses as they are....

5. An alpine marmot, eating & lying in the sun (and occasionally create some offspring) in a very beautiful environment for six months, sleeping for the other six months....

Hey sourpus. I figure I may as well come over here, as for the first time ever, I don't have even the slightest clue what to suggest for RR.

1. Foodstuff: easy, though I too will break the brand name rule.Heinz Salad CreamI will eat this on almost anything savoury, including a full-on Sunday roast dinner instead of gravy. And I will pick the Heinz out of a blind taste test 100% of the time, so any attempt to feed me another brand will find you on your way to Coventry faster than British Rail could ever dream of.

2. Rewards are distributed strictly according to the merit of "contribution to human well-being". Financial karma, if you will. So a reversal of fortune to the current obscenity that pays city traders and sportsmen exponentially more than nurses and firemen. A law physically demonstrable by the alchemous [NEW WORD ALERT] adjustments to bank accounts if any shenanigans are attempted. For instance, Ashley Cole attempts to sign a £1million quid deal to wear Adidas boots. Come the following Saturday, he finds two emails in his inbox: the first says the cheque has bounced, the second is from Medecins Sans Frontieres saying that the 50,000 pairs of stout walking boots, logoed with either Wayne Bridge or Gael Clichy's autograph, have been delivered to needy victims of the recent ... whatever - you get the picture.

3. Easy again. Musical ability. I had guitar and piano lessons as a kid; now can't play a note. I was wanted by both the cathedral choir, and the school's resident rock band; now can't even find a note, let alone hold one.

4. Anticipation of mortal danger to your kids; the tale of that toddler running away from his mum onto the railway line this week just broke my heart.

5. Probably Rocky Roads, the Mel Gibson-voiced cock (I use the word advisedly) in Chicken Run. But if you don't mind, I won't take the gig until after he arrives on the island at the end of the film.

Not doing so well on the middle 8s so I thought I'd pop in and see you good people.1. Can we chip in and buy Darce a jar of Hellman's? Just curious to see if we can convert him. Mine's pomadori - those dried tomatoes in oil. Whole jar in one go and no messing...2. I'd just like the Karma law - what goes around comes around - to work for once. The old 'you reap what you sow' thing. So the bastards get their just deserts for once...3. Reading latin. My teachers were convinced I was a recycled Roman soldier. Now I look at it and think "ehm......"4. "He's behind you!"5. A skylark. Aerodynamically perfect to swoop through the air.

1. Cheese sandwiches made with very lightly toasted bread, especially when accompanied by a piping hot cuppa. Ruin it for me by adding marge or butter (butter's fine on its own, but I can't stand it together with cheese).

2. I can't easily put this into words, but it's something to do with any decisions made by *the authorities* and common sense (preferably application thereof beforehand)

1. I'm not much of a binger, but I can eat more than my fill of kettle fried chups if they are done in sunflower oil, less so with the olive oil variety, and I refuse to touch the palm oil monstrosities, equally any flavour besides salted.2. My new law would introduce a forced 10 second delay between forming a response and opening one's mouth. I'm hoping it will lead to a measurable improvement in human relationships, as well as enhance people's patience.3. I think I've forgotten how to write letters. I used to write nice letters, with drawings and everything. My letterwriting skills have withered on the vine since tinny invented the WWW, thanks a lot M8.4. I would add the sense to perceive other people's pain and confusion, in such a way that you share what you perceive.5. I'm sticking with the Royal Albatross, nearly a year at a time on the go over the southern ocean, monogamous and affectionate to their life-partners, relatively long-lived, fish diet, no predators, assuming a ban on long-line fishing.

1.Um. Almost anything, actually. Olives stuffed with anchovy, garlic or jalapeno pepper. Ungrammatical beans (spicy deep-fried broad beans, sold as 'habas mojado' in local shop, hence the nickname). Cake, unless it has dessicated coconut. Incidentally, when did Caramac become a sort of chocolate? Even by the standards of British chocolate-style confectionary substance, that's pretty darn unchocolaty.

2.The only things I can think of at the moment do actually exist already, there are just a lot of people who prefer to believe that they don't; most obviously, the law of unintended consequences, or, as Marx put it, 'men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please'. Heaven save us from people who think they're in control, like politicians, economists or bankers.

3.My French used to be excellent; I can still read it okay, but can scarcely order a beer coherently.

4. Infra-red vision, to help me deal with the local badger plague, and the damage they're doing to my garden.

5.Siamese cat; life of bleeding Riley, lounging about in warmth and comfort for most of the day, regular food, occasional take-away of squirrel or pigeon when the tuna and Sheba get too boring, no need to work, not even to help one's devoted owner, sorry, servant, to deal with plague of badgers...

1. Salted popcorn. I can eat it till my tummy hurts, and I just did. I like it made with olive oil on the stove, though. Don't really like the microwaveable kind, which is a good thing as we don't have a microwave.

2. Hmmm, tough one. I'd like to do something about violent urges. It could get tricky, because of predatory animals and all, but I'd think of a way around that. Somehow take away the desire to hurt or kill anything.

3. I used to be able to write fairly well, and now I can barely put a sentence together.

4. I don't know, I have to think about it.

5. Maybe a duck. Not very glamorous, I know, but they can fly and swim, which would be nice.

1. Cheese. Any type except processed "cow that laughs" types.2. I'd love it if what went around really did come around. Karma again, maybe.3. I used to be able to play the saxophone but forgot how to do it basically as a service both to music and the human race in general.4.Perception and empathy to how others are feeling. 5. A sloth. I nearly made it this time!

1. hmm....this is the most difficult question for me. i don't like too much of anything. erm....it used be biscuits, Bourbon or fig roll, but they don't sell them over here, i'll have to say nothing! Sorry!

2. I would completely remove testosterone from existence. The whole history of all the bad things that MANkind has ever done, from wars to persecution to capitalism can all be attributed to it, thus making testosterone the root of all evil. At least that's how it seems to me.

3. I've never had any life skills to lose! Although i'd like to get back into playing football. I stopped playing when I was about 13, I played in all the school teams from about 5 years old until that point, but you know how it is....girls, cigarettes and Guns 'N' Roses seemed so much more appealing at the time!

4. I like the Shallow Hal concept that we see and judge on inner kindness rather than outside superficial beauty.

5. maybe a dog. You get to live in the "human" world and watch telly and things like that.

@japanther - no testosterone = no rock n roll = we'd all be listening to the neutered sounds of Cliff Richard

@everyone else - I LOVE COW CHEESE (which is what we call it in our house- eg "Do you want cow cheese or hard cheese on your roll?"). Squeezy cow cheese was launched but was horrible, and has since vanished from view. How can you not like laughing cow, at least it doesn't taste minging like dairylea (ugh)

2: I'm going to be ovine and vote for karma too. There's some people I'd really like to see get what's coming to them.

3: I used to write epic and often illustrated letters too. I often think I'd love to sit down with some good quality paper and my Parker fountain pen and sally forth, but somehow never do. There's no romance in email.

4: I'd like to give everyone a sense of common decency. No more selfishness, people would just behave properly and with consideration without having been told to. No music on buses. Better driving. No fucking talking during gigs. That sort of thing.

5: Swallow or swift: I love the idea of swooping round all summer, we saw tons of them at Hardwick and Goodrich and Stokesay, so I'll like to live somewhere historic and then crap all over it, please.

1 Cherries for me too...where I used to live there was a Saturday market and at the end of the afternoon you could buy any leftover boxes of cherries for a fiver. Nothing wrong with them and I'd eat the lot. Can't abide blackcurrants though.

2 Hmm. I quite like the universe as it is. How about a law that lets us remember what happened to all the precious things that we've managed to mislay? Not to get them back but at least to know what happened to them. For instance, I was once given a very early edition of Burns' poetry by a very ancient woman (the mother of one of my parents' friends), because she'd heard I liked poetry. Damned if I know where it went. It would save a lot of time worrying and searching for stuff; and so we would experience things more gladly.

3 Riding a horse...I used to be able to do it when I was a kid but I'm rubbish at it now. Not bendy enough I suppose.

4 The problem-solving sense. I've always thought it was completely stupid to think that fighting solves problems. With this new sense any group of people just identifies all the factors involved and reaches a conclusion that suits everyone.

5 I like the seabird idea too...maybe an osprey, as they're protected and everyone thinks they're fab. I wouldn't live at Loch Garten though as I wouldn't want my nest to be on telly.